The golden years of railroading are celebrated with the release of this set of five stamps depicting locomotives. The stamps are in a booklet pane of five. The railroad and the steam locomotive marked the high point of the industrial age in the late nineteenth century. Originally, the United States imported its locomotives from England. By the 1830s, however, American manufacturers began building their own engines and introduced innovations such as swiveling front wheels, which allowed locomotives to better handle the rough track common in the United States. Other innovations were headlights and the "cowcatcher," which was necessary in the wide-open ranges of the American West. The five locomotives shown include locomotives built in each of the last five decades of the nineteenth century.